Edmund Storms <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Drilling for oil or even building new reactors will take many > years, up to 10 years depending on who makes the estimate. In contrast, > putting up wind turbines is fast. The slow part is hooking them to the grid > in a massive way. If the country can keep its focus while the price of > energy goes back down, we might make some progress.
Right. No one is a bigger supporter of wind turbines and thermal solar than I, but let me point out some of the limitations of this technology (that I have probably mentioned here): As Ed says, you have to expand the grid. This is the biggest challenge. At present, wind farms are being constructed where fortuitously there is a lot of wind and grid connections are close by. If we keep expanding wind power at the rate of 1 or 2 nuke plants per year -- as we are now doing -- we will run out of such places. Wind is not available in many parts of the country, such as Georgia. With present technology wind can only produce ~20% of electricity in places where it is available. Most wind resources are in places with low population density, such as the Dakotas. Wind can do nothing to reduce oil consumption, unless plug-in hybrids become widely available. It does reduce coal consumption. Coal produces the most CO2 per joule of energy, I believe. To be fair, let me point out that George W. Bush as governor of Texas made important policy decisions that promoted the use of wind energy, and helped make Texas the largest source of wind energy in the U.S., overtaking California. - Jed
